VICTORY MARCH: Eliot Spitzer, of New York, was one of six Dems to take back governorships from the GOP this fall.

It’s hard to overstate the size and scope of the Democratic Party’s gains in the 2006 elections, which will be realized next week when the winners are sworn into office at the national, state, and local levels.

Most political observers believe that the Democrats’ gains were mostly a one-time rejection of all things Republican, thanks to the worsening situation in Iraq and a host of ethics scandals in Congress. But there is good reason to think that this is just the beginning of a period of political ascendancy for the Democratic Party. A number of factors, long in development — from demographic trends to a favorable 2008 Senate reshuffling, and even a new-found, hard-won political competence in the Democratic Party itself — are lined up favorably, offering strong grounds for optimism among liberals.

Nobody’s counting any chickens before they hatch. But it’s worth noting that Americans aren’t showing any post–Election Day buyers’ remorse. On the contrary, they overwhelmingly approve of the Democrats’ impending takeover of Congress, and prefer a Democratic to a Republican presidential victor in 2008 by huge margins.

Here are four signs that 2006 will, in retrospect, mark the start of a new, blue era in American politics.

1) Congressional-numbers game
Although both houses of Congress just flipped to Democratic control, it was not by huge margins. But despite the thin leads, neither house is likely to flip back any time soon.

If anything, the Democrats’ slim 51-49 edge in the Senate figures to expand significantly in 2008, when the Democrats will have to defend just 12 of the seats they now hold, while 21 Republican seats will be in play. Some neutral observers are already predicting a four-seat gain for the Democrats in ’08 — and at least one Democratic pundit comes in at nine.

Observers are aiming high for Senate Democrats because most of their dozen open seats in 2008 are considered safe bets for the blue column. They include those currently held by John Kerry (MA), Richard Durbin (IL), Carl Levin (MI), Max Baucus (MT), Jack Reed (RI), Joe Biden (DE), and John Rockefeller (WV).

The Republican list includes some safe-looking seats too, but also quite a few tenuous ones.

Even some apparently safe GOP seats could look very different if Barack Obama is on the ’08 national ticket as the Democratic nominee for either president or vice-president. That could spur historic black turnout, potentially putting Senate seats in play in Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. The potential effect of Hillary Clinton on women’s turnout, or of Bill Richardson on Hispanics’, might also be felt, though presumably to a lesser extent.

In yet another good sign for Senate Dems, the Republicans will likely be plunged in infighting. In the lead-up to the 2006 midterm elections, the hard right, led by the ornery Club for Growth, challenged incumbent Republicans from the right. And it was perfectly willing to lose seats altogether on the altar of principle, as happened to Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island. In 2008, the same could happen to Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina, among others.

Women on the verge At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course.

Capital power In 2002, it was no mere coincidence that David N. Cicilline’s Providence mayoral campaign placed its campaign headquarters on Elmwood Avenue, in the heart of the capital city’s Latino community.

The blacks try to get back in the game If ever there were a golden opportunity to increase black political representation in Rhode Island, it would be this fall’s City Council elections in Providence, home to the largest black community in the state.

Pushing to replace Bush On an overcast night in early June, nearly 100 of US Senator Barack Obama’s local supporters crowded into the Peerless Lofts in downtown Providence.

Voto para mi? In East Boston, hopes have been high that Democratic candidate Gloribell Mota might draw the neighborhood’s Hispanic residents into the political process.

Across the universe If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, the two parties aren’t even in the same solar system.

How to neuter the Republicans A heavy burden lay upon the first convention of the “netroots” — that amorphous mass of progressive activists participating in blogs and grassroots organizations outside of the Democratic Party — in Las Vegas earlier this month. Netrooting for Dems: Ten blogs to bookmark for the ’08 race. By David S. Bernstein

The next Scott Brown? Republican Scott Brown's victory last month in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has every two-bit GOP hopeful in the Northeast claiming the mantle of the pick-up truck populist.

Tea-bagger Brown triumphs Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley may be a good person and a dedicated public servant, but thanks to her gut-wrenching loss to tea-bagging Republican Scott Brown in the race for the US Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Coakley is now — quite rightly — a figure of local scorn and national derision.

MRS. WARREN GOES TO WASHINGTON | March 21, 2013 Elizabeth Warren was the only senator on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, aside from the chair and ranking minority, to show up at last Thursday's hearing on indexing the minimum wage to inflation.

MARCH MADNESS | March 12, 2013 It's no surprise that the coming weekend's Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have become politically charged, given the extraordinary convergence of electoral events visiting South Boston.

LABOR'S LOVE LOST | March 08, 2013 Steve Lynch is winning back much of the union support that left him in 2009.

AFTER MARKEY, GET SET, GO | February 20, 2013 It's a matter of political decorum: when an officeholder is running for higher office, you wait until the election has been won before publicly coveting the resulting vacancy.